Acne.org Products
Phototherapy
Acne.org’s Real World Take
PDT as it’s called is an incredibly painful procedure, but one that may produce lasting results. It’s a less invasive option than isotretinoin for severe acne that doesn’t cause so many potentially lifelong side effects. However, it works by permanently disabling skin oil glands, and what happens long term when you do that remains unknown. Proceed with caution.
Phototherapy
How to Get It
Have a dermatologist? Make an appointment to get this procedure done. Don't have a dermatologist? See The American Academy of Dermatology Physician Database to find one.
Used Photodynamic Therapy? Rate It:
Choose from 1 to 5 stars
May 11, 2011
Cons:
mild discomfort during the procedure, redness for 2-3 days, burning sensation for 2-3 days, and hyperpigmentation
Hi all! I has this tx done 1 week ago today and had some concerns to share. First, a little history-I have been fighting acne for 8 years ( am 21) and have used various topicals (duac, epiduo, Rentin A) and antibiotics (Doxycycline, minocycline) and accutane in 2008 (40 mg BID for 6 months). I am currently taking 150 mg of Aldactone which has helped with my hormonal bumps, however, I wanted to get rid of some of the scarring and pesky plugs in my chin. My dermatologist recommended this tx for me since I have very fair skin and light acne. I incubated with the levulan for 1 hour and sat under the light for 18 minutes. I had redness and stinging for 2-3 days after the treatment and then I had hyperpigmentation of the scars and some brown patches appeared. I had no peeling and am very concerned that the next tx will exacerbate the discoloration. Again, it has been a week and the hyperpigmentation still persists. The dermatologist insisted that I continue through my series of txs and wants to increase my incubation time to 1.5 hours, but I am still frightened of how my skin is going to react. If anyone out there has experienced a similar reaction, I would greatly appreciate some advice and if this hyperpigmentation will get better with subsequent treatments. Thanks for your help, and best of luck to those trying this treatment
July 24, 2010
Pros:
Reduce my ance
Cons:
Downtime of 4-5 days, expensive, does not reduce oiliness as some might think
I would do it again. After 2 treatments, my skin did not have crazy breakouts like before. It could be because I resumed using BP right after levulan. But I believe the levulan blue light helped a lot. My girlfriend also noticed the difference.
May 10, 2011
Pros:
-makes skin smooth
-somewhat shrinks pores
Cons:
-worse acne!!!!
-painful
-swell up like a balloon times 10
i dont know when or if i will ever get my face back! I wish i never went through with this. i was honestly desperate. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE learn from my mistake and dont do this!!!!!! i was told that after my face peeled i would be left with beautiful skin... however, i was left with worse acne then before and i never thought that was possible. AND THEY HURT MORE THAN EVER!! i did this treatment 2 weeks ago and went in today for a follow up... i basically got an "oh" from the doctor. The first couple days i couldnt even look at myself in the mirror. i probably got a million whiteheads all over my face and didnt even recognize myself from the swelling. i couldnt even open my eyes all the way!!! I would recommend something that works from the inside out like anti-biotics. Please stay away from levulan and blu-u!!!!
October 23, 2009
Pros:
Just had my first treatment yesterday. 3 1/2 hrs. Metvix compound. Then the red light (more intense than the blue) for
8 minutes. painful but bearable
Cons:
cost $300 and not sure what the outcome will be yet. It's early next morning and I am only feeling mild discomfort so wondering what is the lasting effect on the sun damage spots? Medical in Canada does not pay for the treatment.
I am a redhead and had the treatment for severe sun damaged skin headed for cancer. This was a bearable process. My skin does look better so far, and only one day later, but not sure what the long haul process will look like. More treatments are not really affordable, so I hope this one makes the big difference. I will wait for the peeling etc. to see the final outcome, but this process was far better than the liquid nitrogen treatments, which are painful and not completely effective. Barring the expense, I would do it again, providing it really gets rid of the sun damage in several spots over my face.
January 5, 2012
Pros:
- Gets rid of acne
- Reduces oily skin
- Removes acne scarring and sun damage
Cons:
- Very painful
- Very red
- Peeling skin
I have recently had had the levulan activated acne treatment. I have underwent my second one out of four. The pain is the worst you can possibly imagine, Horrible, excruciating. I have had a 75% clearing and have two more treatments to undergo. I HIGHLY reccomend this treatment is defienently worth the price and is truly a cure for acne.
July 14, 2016
Full 6 month review
I waited a long time to post a review. I feel I can give a thorough pro and cons and long term results. My background:
Female
Diagnosed PCOS (or misdiagnosed with some other hormone imbalance)
Slim/slender weight
Athletic high protein diet
Sever cystic acne since 11 years old Prior to PDT I did the following:
Attained birth control (improved acne 30%)
Attained spirobolactone (anti testosterone) improved 40%
Adjusted to healthier lower carb diet and began weightlifting and running 4 years ago
Gluten and dairy elimination 4 month trial
Gluten elimination no noticeable difference
Dairy elimination: huge impact- worsened breakouts horrendously for 3 months before a night and day change of about 70% clear up PHOTODYNAMIC THERAPY (2 treatments)
Incubation 90 minutes
Blue light 20 minutes I decided to do photodynamic therapy due to persistent moderate acne, after the above treatments listed. My acne has improved tremendously since I was younger, however I'm on continuous hormone therapy, and it's been expected that I will struggle with this for life. After my first treatment, the hardest part was staying inside and not being driven crazy by skin purging and peeling. I noticed it took about two weeks to fully recover. I had one small round of breakouts the second week, but had noticeably's little or no breakouts after the first treatment. It's recommended you do 3 to 6 treatments, so I signed up for a second one. My second one I had complications. I was wrapped in a headscarf but too close to a window for several hours. Long story short I ended up with second-degree burn blisters all over my face. It was one of the most painful procedures I've ever had done; on the bright side, I had no long-term effects of the burn, and in fact in those places that blistered I haven't had a break out since. I wouldn't recommend sitting in front of the window because of the side effects or permanent damage, I just seemed to get lucky. And total of only had two treatments and it has been the best choice I've ever made. The results in my opinion are that of Accutane or even better. I never did Accutane because of the side effects, this is an incredibly great alternative. Keep in mind everyone is different and you May need several treatments to see results. It also takes a long time to fully recover and let your glands produce oil differently (I'd give it 5 weeks before fully judging the results) I believe that because I had gotten the worst of my acne under control, I didn't need very many treatments. I plan to do one more photodynamic therapy treatment along with the fraxel laser in the upcoming months. I don't know if I necessarily need another treatment however it is recommended that you get three and my results have been incredible every time. I will try and update pictures as I figure out how to use my account. It's 6 months later and I get a couple small surface breakouts when I ovulate. My makeup stays on for hours with decreased oil production, and I even got a pixie cut feeling more confident about my skin. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR ANYONE
October 2, 2017
Did you have blotchiness with your PCOS and if so, did the treatment help that? thank you
April 10, 2011
Pros:
reduced oil production temporarily
Cons:
-can't be outdoors at all the next day
-long downtime
-severe breakout
-redness
I signed up to get 6 treatments of this, but was only able to get 4 because I reacted so badly to the fourth. My face burned so much the week of my recovery and it was just so unbearable I had to go on pain medication. My skin scabbed horribly and started breaking out more than how I initially started. It took about 2 good months before the pain completely went away. Now, 7 months after, my skin is still extremely red and scarred from the cystic acne it caused me.
February 15, 2015
so far so good
I am 48 and have been suffering with severe acne since I was 12. Birth control helped tremendously but gave me severe migraines. I've been on many different topicals such as tazorac, differin, epiduo, clindimycin, (please excuse my spelling) Retin A, the list goes on and on. I've been on antibiotics my whole life on and off but they often lost their effectiveness, or caused gastrointestinal problems. I've had many different laser treatments such as cool touch, smoothbeam, all with disappointing results. I've tried to control my diet with whole foods, lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts, avoided processed foods, white flour, sugar, all the bad stuff. I've had chemical peels, microdermabrasion monthly still without the result I was looking for. I really thought at my age I would be done with this by now. I have to say that I believe there is hope now but I'm not sure it's with the PDT. Please bear with me as I tell you my story: I just finished my second PDT treatment with similar results that were posted: sunburnt skin, purging breakouts, peeling, worse than ever acne, ect. While going through the process I felt like I needed to research other answers as my awful appearance motivated me to do so. It occurred to me that inflammation has been said to exacerbate acne. I started googling the subject of inflammation and came across an author that wrote a book and designed an app in order to assign each food an inflammatory rating either positive or negative. A negative number is for inflammatory foods. The higher the number the more inflammatory it is. A positive number is for anti inflammatory foods, the higher the number the more anti inflammatory. I bought the app and started eating the most anti inflammatory diet I could. It should be noted that foods you may think are anti inflammatory such as blueberries actually have a negative rating. They aren't bad for you. They have a lot of antioxidants but for whatever reason they are given a negative rating and considered inflammatory. One of the highest rated foods was cod liver oil with a positive rating of 1,061 for a tablespoon. Other foods with very high ratings were raw ginger, turmeric, garlic powder, anchovies, and many others. Since I started eating this way my skin has improved greatly! One could argue it's the PDT treatment (I'm sure my dermatologist would), but my skin didn't start improving until i starting eating in this way. As i researched, I came across someone helping to promote fermented cod liver oil to "cure" acne. I put two and two together and realized that the reason it might have helped some people is because of the high anti inflammatory properties that I found cod liver oil had on my food app. The name of the app is IF Tracker [Removed]. I really think eating this way could actually be the answer for me. I will continue PDT treatments since it's possible they could be what is actually helping my skin, but my gut is telling me that it's eating a high anti inflammatory diet. Whatever the answer is, my skin never looked better and I couldn't be happier! I hope this helps someone because no one knows better than me how difficult it can be living with severe acne.
August 21, 2012
Pros:
Effective
Reduce Oily Skin
No Pimple Yet
Cons:
Expensive
Itchy
Painful (YES BEAUTY HURTS)
Redness
I did this treatment because my acne was getting out of control. I had so many acne popping up everyday, therefore I went to my first dermatologist and he advised me to do Levulan Blue Light. First, I doubted this treatment would be effective but it doesn't hurt to try since my face was already a disaster. So I had the treatment done and my face felt a bit stingy afterwards.
The next day my face flared up in flames and in the sun my face burned like ****! It was so embarrassing to go out since I looked like I got a sunburn on my face. (BTW, huge whiteheads formed, which is totally suppose to happen.)
On the fourth day, my entire face began to peel. Strips of dead skin would flake off my face like snow. (The whiteheads got smaller and turned black (blackheads??).) So nasty however it was worth it. My face started to itch.
By the sixth day, the redness reduced but flaking got worse. My entire face became really itchy. Try not to touch it!!
By the eighth day, redness reduced, peeling reduced, itchiness reduce.
By ninth day, my face returned to normal. Yay!!
Today is the seventeenth day and NOT A SINGLE PIMPLE appeared yet! And Mother nature's monthly gift was given to me two days ago. Usually a week before I start, my pimple would pop up like daisies!
Well That's All. Thanks For Reading.
July 10, 2015
How many treatment did you have?
February 27, 2010
Pros:
Unfortunately, none really.
Cons:
My acne has gotten exceedingly worse. The reason I had this procedure performed was to eliminate several under-the-skin bumps I had. This procedure has given me so many more, in places I had never even had bumps before. It's to the point where people have been asking me what happened to my skin.
I understand that people will respond to treatments differently, but please be cognizant. Also, for anyone who faced similar, poor results like I did, are the damages irreversible, or did your skin get better? I am terrified that the damage is permanent. Please advise if you have any experiences with this. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Pros:
helped to draw out plugs and under the skin bumps